Imaging Emission Spectra With Handheld And Cellphone Cameras

As point-and-shoot digital camera technology advances it is becoming easier to image spectra in a laboratory setting on a shoestring budget and get immediate results. With this in mind, I wanted to test three cameras to see how their results would differ. Two undergraduate physics students and I used one handheld 7.1 megapixel (MP) digital Cannon point- and-shoot auto focusing camera and two different cellphone cameras: one at 6.1 MP and the other at 5.1 MP.